Last year 4,753 people – the highest number ever – received an organ. The number of recipients has risen by 20% over the past five years. The number of people who have signed the NHS organ donor register, signalling their willingness to have their organs harvested after their death, has risen by 4.9 million over the same period and now stands at 23.6 million, also a record high.
Fiona Loud, policy director at the charity Kidney Care UK, said: “The government has done the right thing and made a vital step towards increasing donations and transplantation, which is fantastic news for the thousands of people currently waiting for a kidney transplant.”
The proposed switch to presumed consent, which will be subject to a public consultation, could prove “truly transformational”, Loud said. “With one person dying every day in the UK whilst waiting for a kidney transplant, this change cannot come soon enough.”
Wales introduced presumed consent in December 2015 and has seen organ retrieval rates rise as a result. Scotland and Northern Ireland have both expressed interest in following suit.
Gordon Brown, the last Labour prime minister, wanted to bring in the same system in 2008, but he did not pursue the plan after a taskforce he set up to investigate the practicalities of doing so advised against it. Although many doctors backed the move, others were concerned hat it could cause tension in the relationship between doctors providing end-of-life care and patients and their relatives.
Brown abandoned the plan after the taskforce concluded that “such a system has the potential to undermine the concept of donation as a gift, to erode trust in NHS professionals and the government and negatively impact on organ donation numbers”.
The taskforce added: “Furthermore, it would be challenging and costly to implement successfully. Most compelling of all, we found no convincing evidence that it would deliver significant increases in the number of donated organs.”